


release

by The Master of the Deck (officiumdefunctorum)



Series: on wednesdays we whump [9]
Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Angst, Book 04: Rhythm of War, Book 04: Rhythm of War Spoilers, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dissociation, M/M, Non-Consensual Touching, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Assault, Spoilers through Chapter 8: Surrender, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Whump, past Kal/Moash, suicide baiting, unbeta'd we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officiumdefunctorum/pseuds/The%20Master%20of%20the%20Deck
Summary: Kaladin had never needed to teach Moash to take advantage of vulnerabilities in a fight; he'd always been very good at that.
Relationships: Kaladin/Moash (Stormlight Archive)
Series: on wednesdays we whump [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661389
Comments: 16
Kudos: 34





	release

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tags.
> 
> This is a reimagining of the scene in Roshone's cellar, and contains some dialogue directly from the book. I thought, well... what if I made it _worse_? And then I did.

As Kaladin watched blood pool around Roshone’s corpse, he felt his stormlight dwindle within him. The heat of the flames built, the weight of his failures pressing down on him like the burning structure above. Looking at the terrible figure that had emerged from the darkness, Kaladin only had room for one thought in his head.

_I should have known._

This. _This_ failure was always going to come for him. Who had he failed more than Moash, who—who had been—

He felt it again, the paralysis. The awful, frozen inability to think or act; a flood of terror, and heartbreak, and an unending crush of guilt.

Those _eyes_. Storms, how many times had Kaladin looked into them and found friendship and comfort, even love? How many times had he leaned on Moash, his mind and body so _solid_ when Kal was weak? Even now, the passion and life drained from them, almost black in this nascent tomb, they were more familiar than Kaladin’s own.

His friend. His betrayer. His lover. His _nightmare._

Bridge four.

Storms, but Kaladin should have known this was coming. He hadn’t been able to say the words, and had begun to realize he would probably never say them. Not when—not when this failure was counted among the litany. Not when he had lost another person he should have protected most.

Those callous eyes moved toward him in the darkness, heedless of the spear Kaladin held in front of him. Moash knew Kal couldn’t kill him, just like Kaladin knew it. Not when Moash wouldn’t fight; wouldn’t even give Kaladin the excuse of saving his own worthless life in the exchange.

But Moash was smarter than Kaladin, and had never been afraid to hit an opponent when they were down.

Kaladin’s mind raced, his heart keeping pace with the chaos and fire that raged above.

 _Not this, not again. Not_ him.

“We’ve been here before, Kal,” said Moash, his voice low and smooth. So familiar. So _missed_.

“Shut up,” Kal hissed, wanting to be gone, to be anywhere but here. His arms trembled, and Syl tried and failed to get his attention, urging him to leave.

“Surrounded by darkness and death,” the man mused, stepping closer, and Kal almost flinched, shying away from his terrible presence.

A moment passed, and his Stormlight finally ran out, leaving Kal feeling exhausted and weak. _Vulnerable_.

 _He_ _’s always made me vulnerable,_ thought Kaladin. Why should now be any different, now that Kaladin was Radiant?

“Do you remember the chasm, Kal?” Moash asked, tilting his head to the side. “In the rain, that night? Standing there looking down into the darkness and knowing it was your sole release?”

Storms, but Kaladin remembered telling Moash about that. Remembered how Moash had reached for his hand. It had been a comfort, then. This... _this_ was like a dagger in his side.

Kal’s mind flashed to that rain drenched darkness when he’d stood at the edge of the chasm, ready to step into the abyss and be finished with his failures for good. Storms, but how many _more_ failures he might have spared himself if he’d only done it.

The oppressive weight of his own survival, the heavy burden that was each inhale and exhale crushed him, and Kaladin almost choked on it. As his mind whirled, Moash drew closer, close enough to touch, then close enough, almost, to feel.

Dread radiated from Moash like body heat, and both soaked into Kaladin, somehow leaving him even colder than before.

“Do you remember _our_ release?” Asked Moash, voice almost a purr.

 _Stormfather, no,_ thought Kaladin. _Please don_ _’t do this to me. Don’t take that away from me, too._

He touched Kal’s face, then, and it made him want to weep with longing; to retch in disgust.

The gentle press of Moash’s hand was a horrible, mocking thing. A pantomime of touches they’d shared, a caress Kaladin had once treasured for its incongruity with the hard, abrasive bridgeman he had come to know so well.

 _Not well enough to save him_.

That hand on his face was like the weight of the manor above him, crushing him down, burning him and suffocating every meaningful thought in his head. It was memory, and guilt, and _pain_ , and with everything inside of him Kaladin wanted to rip himself free of it.

Kaladin felt Moash’s other hand rest against his chest, the fabric of his singed and bloodstained uniform yielding to the firm, familiar, _hateful_ press of a murderer’s fingers. Syl flit around them frantically, but Kaladin couldn’t—he couldn’t hear her. He was fixed in place, lashed to uselessness by the gravity of his own broken mind.

Breaths coming short and quick, some detached part of Kaladin—the one with Lirin’s voice—knew he was panicking, maybe even in shock. The press of Moash’s hand felt hot, like it burned with the intensity of the fire that raged above. As the man drew his hand down the front of Kaladin’s uniform, parting the fabric where it was damaged from Leshwi’s spear thrust, he dipped his fingers into the torn cloth to touch Kaladin’s bare skin.

Something like a sob tore itself from Kal’s throat. A monstrous heave, a noise of denial, of _agony_.

“No,” he gasped, eyes wide and staring, focused on some middle distance he could not define so he would not have to look into those damning eyes, not expose the longing such simple touches revealed. Nothing made sense. He wanted it to _stop_.

“Please,” whispered Kaladin, hating the tortured sound of his voice.

“You try to pretend you’ve forgotten,” Moash murmured, pushing his entire hand through the ragged fabric to press the fullness of hot, calloused skin against Kal’s own, making him shudder. “But you _know_. You know me, and you know _yourself_.”

Body trembling, Kaladin couldn’t help himself, he squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered. _These_ memories hurt too much. He couldn’t—not like this, it had never been like _this_.

Moash pulled on the tear in his uniform, a slow, inexorable exertion of force that ripped the bloodied shirt and coat along the path Moash drew. Down, down, and down, a sickening sound of rending fabric that seized Kaladin’s breath like a noose drawing taught around his neck.

“As sure as the storms will come, there is only one answer, one path, one _result_ for us—and for you,” said Moash, and Kaladin felt fingers curl gently into his tangled hair, escaped from the tie that held it back.

 _No, Stormfather_ no _, not like this._

“S-st,” he tried, but Kaladin’s lips wouldn’t form the word. He couldn’t think past the horrible mix of the exhaustion in his limbs, the agony in his chest, and the burning path Moash’s hand made as it reached his belt.

“I found the better way,” Moash whispered, leaning his face in close next to Kal’s, lips dragging over his cheek, his neck, toward his ear, speaking the words like a secret, like the—like when they would—

 _I was supposed to save you,_ Kal thought, with despair. _You were supposed to save_ me.

“I feel no guilt,” said Moash, calm as he drew his hand down the front of Kal’s trousers. Familiar, proprietary, like he had always been, and Kaladin’s body knew that touch. Woke to it in spite of the pathetic sound it ripped from his throat. “I’ve given it away, and in so doing became the person I could always have become, if I hadn’t been...” Moash slipped his thigh between Kal’s legs, _pressing_ , forcing Kaladin’s body to move with him. _“Restrained_.”

“You’ve become a monster,” Kaladin managed to gasp out as Moash pulled his face away. The man gripped Kal’s hair tighter and drew his head back, exposing his neck, like he had when he’d murdered Roshone just minutes ago.

Opening his eyes, Kal met Moash’s, unable to move or choose what to do or say—frozen again. In Moash’s eyes he saw the shadow of his lover, his friend, but also something terrible. Something almost tempting.

“I can take away the pain, Kal,” Moash said, his voice hypnotic. He held Kaladin’s eyes, grip firm in his hair as he worked his hand over Kaladin’s stiffening cock through bloodstained fabric. “Isn’t that what you want, an _end_ to your suffering?”

In the growing heat of the cellar, Kal’s body felt cold, like it was not his own. Like a lighteyed corpse, he was a statue soulcast from empty promises and broken oaths. Syl was—Syl was gone. It was just him, Moash, and the fire. His hands on Kaladin, his fingers drawing away Kal’s belt and reaching inside.

 _This is my tomb_ , thought Kaladin, despair mingling with sickening arousal, and he was just—so _tired_ , so tired of being afraid, and of hurting.

In his mind, Kaladin saw blood, and death, and felt the phantom pain of crushed ribs. Kaladin was paralyzed, unable to move or object, to push Moash away. All he could do was—hurt.

His forgotten spear slipped from numb fingers as Moash wrapped a hand around Kaladin’s cock and stroked. Kaladin’s breaths hitched in his throat, and he felt several tears slip from open eyes that now stared at nothing, no longer able to maintain Moash’s terrible, passionless gaze.

“There’s a simple path to freedom,” Moash said, working his wrist and fingers, making odious pleasure shoot through Kal’s benumbed body. The man leaned his face in once more and dragged his lips up the underside of Kaladin’s chin, kissing his clammy skin. “You’re my dearest friend, Kal. I want you to stop hurting.”

_Then why are you hurting me? Why don_ _’t you ever stop hurting me?_

Kaladin choked on a sob.

Moash worked his cock with a practiced, familiar hand, lifting it out of his trousers and exposing his shame fully to the close air of the cellar.

“I want you to be _free_ ,” said Moash into the skin of Kaladin’s throat, placing a tender, almost comforting kiss there, as he moved his other hand to the back of Kal’s neck. Moash’s lips made their way to Kaladin’s own, and only a breath separated them.

“No,” Kaladin whispered into Moash’s mouth, trembling; grotesque pleasure building where Moash touched him.

“The answer is to stop existing, love,” Moash said against his lips, pressing the words in with a soft kiss that Kaladin didn’t— _couldn_ _’t_ —resist. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. Everything was—noise, and confusion, and _failure._

“You’ve always known it, haven’t you?” Moash said, grinding his thigh into Kaladin’s groin as he kissed his way across Kal’s jaw, collecting tears as they fell.

One broad hand stroked his hair, Moash touching him like he once had before he’d beaten Kaladin half to death, before he’d killed Elhokar in front of him. Before he’d broken Kaladin in ways he hadn’t known he _could_ be broken. Before _this_.

More tears fell, and Kaladin wanted to be gone. He wanted to huddle away from everything that was happening to him, from the agony of feeling Moash touch him when the man who had been his lover was all but dead, and Kaladin had let him die.

As he curled up inside himself, away from the pain, he could not escape the pleasure, could not escape the sensation of Moash stroking, and kissing, and _holding_ him. Storms but Kaladin missed him, and _hated_ him.

“I need one thing from you, love,” Moash said, moving his head to find Kal’s staring eyes, once more. “I need you to admit that I’m right.”

The words burned themselves into a Kaladin with every caress, every squeeze of Moash’s hand, every press of his thigh, every involuntary jerk of his own hips.

“I need you to see,” he said, pushing his thigh up and forcing Kal’s legs wider. “As they keep dying, remember. As you fail them, and the pain consumes you, _remember_ ,” Moash said, forcing Kal’s eyes to meet his own and hold them. “There is a way out.”

 _No,_ thought Kaladin, as the pleasure built inside him, tensing. _Please, no._

“Remember release,” he said, intensifying his motions, feeling how close Kaladin was. He could always tell. “Step back up to that cliff, step back to our chasm,” Moash said, bringing their foreheads together, pressing Kal’s sweat slick slave brands into his own cool, dry flesh.

“And jump into the darkness.”

Kaladin’s body convulsed, and he was held fast by Moash’s passionless gaze as the man brought him to orgasm, unable to look away while Moash forced the pleasure out of his body with ruthless strokes—devastating touches that could hardly have seemed pleasurable a moment ago when they hurt so much now.

In an easy motion, barely a step, Moash withdrew from Kaladin’s space, releasing him. Like a man run through with a shardblade, Kaladin crumpled to his knees, his abused cock lying exposed against his still clothed thigh, now stained with more than blood and ash.

“But I won’t fight you, Kal,” whispered the monster before him, somewhere distant. It sounded like it pitied him. Kaladin didn’t blame it. “There is no fight to be won. We never had a chance, you and I. Not for love, or happiness,” said the monster— _Moash._

And this monster _was_ Moash, as much as Kaladin wished he were not, that he had been able to save him from the fate that had brought his lover here, that had now polluted something Kaladin had tried so hard to keep secret and safe within himself. For all that they had hurt, the bittersweet memories had felt precious.

“We lost the moment we were born into this cursed life of suffering,” Moash pronounced. “The sole victory left to us is to choose to end it, and—this, my gift.” Moash waved a careless gesture at him, the hand stained with Kaladin’s seed. _“Release.”_

Tiny red and white flower petals drifted past his face. Shame spren, he thought, detached, like Moash’s voice.

“I found my way,” said Moash, inspecting his hand, then Kaladin on his knees in front of him. “There is one open to you.”

Kaladin just stared at the floor, every part of him numb—stilled by horrified exhaustion.

Then came light, and warmth.

* * *

When the lights drew back, and Moash was gone, Kaladin couldn’t—he _couldn_ _’t_ move. Not even to cover himself. He knelt on the floor of that cellar, Roshone’s blood seeping into his stained trousers, and shuddered.

The warm glow returned, and Kaladin... _felt_. Some measure of the darkness receded, and with it came the even more crushing reality of what had just happened to him. What—what Moash had _done_ to him.

In front of him, Kaladin saw Renarin, kneeling, though surely the house above was moments from total collapse and burying them both.

Renarin held out his own Bridge Four coat, and Kaladin slowly lifted a shaking hand to cover the wide, ragged tear Moash had left in his own. When he felt the torn garment, the Bridge Four uniform that Moash had violated as deliberately as he had Kaladin’s body, a small sob crawled up out of his throat like a cremling.

“Sir,” Renarin said, voice gentle. “We need to go. I have spheres.”

Kaladin turned his body away from Renarin, a couple more horrified sobs escaping him between gasps for clean air as he hid his shame with shaking hands, tucking his flaccid cock back into his trousers and fastening them with haphazard motions. Desperately, he tried to gain control of himself. Storms, he—Moash had—Renarin—

“Kaladin,” came Renarin’s voice, once more, still soft, but insistent. “Kal, I’m—we need to leave, I’m sorry.”

From behind, Kaladin felt Renarin drape his too small coat around his broad shoulders, hand lightly resting on Kal’s arm through the fabric. Somehow, it covered the ragged tear anyway.

With the warmth of Renarin Kholin’s body seeping into him almost as if he still radiated light, Kaladin felt, for the moment, like he could breathe through his humiliation.

“Alright,” he croaked, and let Renarin help him stand.

* * *

Later, when Kaladin came to himself aboard the Fourth Bridge, Renarin stood next to him, and a little behind. It was only when Kaladin noticed the knot of unoccupied space in the vicinity that he realized Renarin was keeping people away, including, likely, his father.

Kal couldn’t help the humiliation that coursed through him, and shame spren fell around him in a burst of red and white.

 _No time for this,_ Kaladin thought, utterly exhausted, pushing away what Moash had burned into his mind—and his flesh—with a ruthless effort of will. The petals faded. That will was getting harder and harder to muster, each day, each time he froze. And now—

_Later. I can hurt later. I can feel this later._

But he always hurt, didn’t he? Everything always just—hurt.

“Sir,” said Renarin, coming into Kaladin’s peripheral vision. “I. Do you—I mean,” he started, and Kal removed a hand from where it gripped Renarin’s coat to make a stopping gesture.

“Thank you, Renarin,” he said, voice no longer hoarse, just... tired. Empty. “And—for your coat,” he said, looking down at the too small garment once more, hoping Renarin took his meaning.

“Of course,” murmured Renarin. “I’m sorry it—isn’t a bigger coat,” said the thin man, looking away with a frown.

“It’s big enough,” answered Kaladin.

Until he took to the skies once more—to the _true_ release of flight—Kaladin wore Renarin’s coat, concealing the hole that Moash had left in his uniform, and—for a time—the hole Moash had left in Kaladin himself.

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
